Federalist Paper 57, written by James Madison to the people of the State of New York, discusses the issue of elected representatives being advocates of the priviledged and powerful few instead of the many who elected them. He is saying that to prevent the domination of elected members of the House of Representatives, by the special interest few, is to use term limits.
Today with the Cost of Presidential, Senatorial and US House elections reaching mega-millions. The total amount of money raised by the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates may, by the time of Election Day 2008, approach or even break $1 billion. For just the first nine months of 2007, presidential candidates in the two major parties had already collected a total of $415 million.
It is appropriate to reflect on who is paying this expense, and what will the price be in return for their beneficence?
A case in point is the campaign verbosity of Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama's "Time for a change" populist speeches are fine prosaicisms, but ring hollow when the fact is revealed that millions of dollars have been poured into his campaign from the trial lawyers and invesment bankers. The pharmaceutical and health industry are also large contributors to both Obama and Hillary.
One of Mr. Obama’s fund-raisers, Kirk Dornbush, president of Iconic Therapeutics, a biotech company in Atlanta, said, “The contributions reflect the simple calculus of the health care industry, making a bet that Democrats will control the White House and both houses of Congress after the next election.” Lobbyists, Commercial Banks, Health Professionals, Lawyers/Law Firms, Pharmaceuticals/Health Products, Real Estate, and Securities and Investment. The list is endless of the special interest goups buying influence with people who profess they will represent the people who want change!
The following is an fragment excerpted from Federalist 57:
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government. The means relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments( note: aka:election) as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.
"We are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements. In the second place, they will enter into the public service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents.
"It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and that human prudence can devise? Are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people? What are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them"?
The framers of our form of government never intended the representatives of the people would come to Washington and serve their entire active life in a position of power and influence, where corruption and accumulation of personal wealth has a perfidious effect on our government of the people and by the people!
It is past time when we the people enact term limits. WE have it for the highest office in the land, and we need it for all elected officials. Our very freedoms depend on this, even if we have to do it despite the kicking and screaming of the "chicken littles" in Congress!
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